Coronavirus - general, non tennis related

flamingowings · All-time great

RE: Coronavirus - general, non tennis related

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Strongbow wrote:
Amazing that with 137 new Covid deaths today the media are concentrating on Sarah Everard and fuel shortages - what is wrong with the world.

The media might seem slightly blasé now about the covid deaths because, as Indy says, it's the norm.

And, anyway, what about all the other deaths?

There were 11,009 deaths last week, in England and Wales (more with Scotland, obviously)

Why should the media make 137 of them main news and ignore the other 10,900?

Moreover, as flamingow says, the Everard killing and the fallout is deservedly main news - hundreds of thousands of women now not only feel unsafe outside but feel that the very people who are there to protect them (a) will not necessarily protect them, quite the opposite and (b) their police and political bosses seem to think that this isn't a problem, that poor Sarah should have been more 'streetwise' (God give me strength, that almost made me cry) and that women should run into strangers' house and stop random buses if arrested by a what might be a dodgy police officer.

And fuel shortages run to the heart of modern society (getting people to work, kids to school, patients to hospital, goods into shops, supplies to chemists etc etc) and the handling of it runs to the heart of what you think about the government (from not their fault and blame the media, to utterly unprepared without any game plan). I think that's news.

flamingowings · All-time great

Wasn't that just a shocking comment CD (about her, and presumably all other women) to be more streetwise? What a gutpunch that is to everyone but especially her friends and family.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

flamingowings wrote:
Wasn't that just a shocking comment CD (about her, and presumably all other women) to be more streetwise? What a gutpunch that is to everyone but especially her friends and family.

That was our North Yorkshire Crime Commissioner that came out with that gem. Idiot.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I thought the 'run to a stranger's house, flag a bus' could be called 'idiotic' comments - i.e. random ideas, just to try and say something, make daft suggestions, without thinking them through....

But the Allott comments that Sarah should have been streetwise and should never have 'submitted' to the arrest were not those of an 'idiot' - they were those of a very misogynistic, victim-blaming, truly nasty person, with zero empathy. They were some of the most shocking comments I've heard for a long time.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, CD, and I read that the role of the commisioner is to be "the voice of the people ...". People, get this man out at the first opportunity ( if he doesn't realise that he is unfit for purpose and resign ).

In general yes the current main news stories do seem the right main news stories.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

indiana wrote:
Strongbow wrote:
Amazing that with 137 new Covid deaths today the media are concentrating on Sarah Everard and fuel shortages - what is wrong with the world.

Certainly every covid death is a sad loss and there have been far too many avoidable ones. But that's currently a pretty normal figure ( I'm Incidentally seeing 137 reported yesterday and 127 today ).
Overall UK covid deaths over a full week have come down from 1000 to last Friday to 806 to this Friday. In general, as I mentioned above, the death rate has been fairly settled for quite a number of weeks.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 2nd of October 2021 05:32:55 AM

Dealing with both flu and Corona is going be a double whammy for the health services this winter !!

Seasonal influenza killed an estimated 44,505 people in England during the combined flu seasons from 2015-16 and 2017-18. That number died from Covid in England in the first nine weeks of 2021.

Every winter, flu puts enormous stress on the NHS. A global surveillance network detects which variants of influenza are in circulation and likely to pose a threat in the following season. The information determines which strains go into the annual flu vaccines that are then rolled out in established campaigns. Unfortunately Corona is not at the same stage, no mechanisms are in place to predict which strain will be prevalent the following season, however vaccination should have a massive impact on reducing covid deaths.

Race to find pill for Corona

Pfizer announced on Wednesday new trials of their experimental oral antiviral drugs for COVID-19 as the race to develop an easy-to-administer treatment for the potentially fatal illness heats up. Pfizer's drug is designed to block the activity of a key enzyme that is needed for the coronavirus to multiply.

Merck said its new trial will study experimental drug molnupiravir for the prevention of COVID-19 among adults in the same household as someone diagnosed with symptomatic coronavirus infection. Molnupiravir is a type of antiviral designed to introduce errors into the RNA of the virus that eventually prevent it from replicating.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-starts-dosing-patients-oral-covid-19-drug-trial-2021-09-01/

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/influenzadeathsin20182019and2020

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Saturday 2nd of October 2021 08:25:53 AM

indiana · Tennis legend

I see that the last week's Scottish new covid case numbers came in at slightly under the overall UK figure of 352 per 100K, having been over 800 per 100K three weeks earlier and some dire forecasts of it going quite a bit higher.

The covid death rate in the last week remains about double in Scotland ( 134 out of the UK total of 806 deaths ) but hopefully with the time lag this too will fairly soon drop back more in line.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

The House of Commons Committees have published their report.

Amongst the findings are:

1.The UKs pandemic planning was too narrowly and inflexibly based on a flu model which failed to learn the lessons from SARS, MERS and Ebola. The result was that whilst our pandemic planning had been globally acclaimed,4 it performed less well than other countries when it was needed most.

3.Whether because of inadequate capacity or deliberate policy, it was also a serious mistake to get to the point where community testing was stopped early in the pandemic. A country with a world-class expertise in data analysis should not have faced the biggest health crisis in a hundred years with virtually no data to analyse. This problem was compounded by a failure of national public bodies involved in the response to share such data as was available with each other, including between national and local government.

5.The initial response to the crisis also exposed some major deficiencies in the machinery of Government. The structures for offering scientific advice lacked transparency, international representation and structured challenge. Protocols to share vital information between public bodies were absent.

10.Despite being one of the first countries in the world to develop a test for covid in January 2020, the United Kingdom failed to translate that scientific leadership into operational success in establishing an effective test and trace system during the first year of the pandemic. The slow, uncertain, and often chaotic performance of the test, trace and isolate system severely hampered the UKs response to the pandemic.

13.The Government and the NHS both failed adequately to recognise the significant risks to the social care sector at the beginning of the pandemic. Until the social care working group was established in May 2020, SAGE either did not have sufficient representation from social care or did not give enough weight to the impact on the social care sector.

and it goes on ...

As per Executive Summary: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmsctech/92/9204.htm

or full report: committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/news/157991/coronavirus-lessons-learned-to-date-report-published/

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

For those who are following the statistics around the current situation with covid and making comparisons between the UK and other countries, this is a fascinating thread.

twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1449801652207239176

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

All I know is that there are nearly 50,000 cases today in the Uk, with a huge number coming from 10-15 year old schoolkids (and then their parents), with certain schools with only 50% of kids in attendance.

Countries in Europe have about 5,000 - 7,000 cases a day (France and Germany) - with a large amount of testing still in France because, up until right now, it's freely available to anyone. The positivity rates obviously show that it's not the amount of testing, anyway.

And so, what's going on? Well, could it be that masks are still obligatory in French secondary schools?

And still obligatory in primary schools unless the department has less than 50 cases per 100,000 habitants for 4 days on the trot.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
All I know is that there are nearly 50,000 cases today in the Uk, with a huge number coming from 10-15 year old schoolkids (and then their parents), with certain schools with only 50% of kids in attendance.

Countries in Europe have about 5,000 - 7,000 cases a day (France and Germany) - with a large amount of testing still in France because, up until right now, it's freely available to anyone. The positivity rates obviously show that it's not the amount of testing, anyway.

And so, what's going on? Well, could it be that masks are still obligatory in French secondary schools?

And still obligatory in primary schools unless the department has less than 50 cases per 100,000 habitants for 4 days on the trot.

And the fact that the universities arent seeing many cases must be down to a larger vaccinated cohort at that age?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Partly maybe but also that (apart from a bit of freshers frolicking) uni students are far less 'densely' populated and for far shorter hours - speaking to two students in London this week, they have two hours of physical lectures per week, and one hour of tutorials - now they might meet friends etc (I'm sure they do) but it's hardly the same as classes of kids right together, from 9 till 4, five days a week

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
Partly maybe but also that (apart from a bit of freshers frolicking) uni students are far less 'densely' populated and for far shorter hours - speaking to two students in London this week, they have two hours of physical lectures per week, and one hour of tutorials - now they might meet friends etc (I'm sure they do) but it's hardly the same as classes of kids right together, from 9 till 4, five days a week

True although in my daughters halls they share 10 folks in a shared flat, kitchen and living space and hang out together a lot.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Coup Droit wrote:
All I know is that there are nearly 50,000 cases today in the Uk, with a huge number coming from 10-15 year old schoolkids (and then their parents), with certain schools with only 50% of kids in attendance.

Countries in Europe have about 5,000 - 7,000 cases a day (France and Germany) - with a large amount of testing still in France because, up until right now, it's freely available to anyone. The positivity rates obviously show that it's not the amount of testing, anyway.

And so, what's going on? Well, could it be that masks are still obligatory in French secondary schools?

And still obligatory in primary schools unless the department has less than 50 cases per 100,000 habitants for 4 days on the trot.

As I have said before, its not rocket science. The virus is doing what its designed to do i.e. spread and we are helping it, by not adhering to the practices we know will limit that. Mainly mask wearing and social distancing (especially in crowded spaces indoors)